


Malevolence

by blisters



Category: Tales of Berseria
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blisters/pseuds/blisters
Summary: Velvet moved closer, until she was looking down at my face. “Niko said that if I was a boy she would have fallen in love with me. And I told her if I was a boy, I would fall in love with her. Because I know I would have fallen in love with her just the same. But,” in the darkness I couldn’t see her claw until it was pressing against my chest. Gently; a warning and a request. “Do you think she could have loved me like this?”A retelling of the story.





	1. The End

My third defeat at the hands of the demon, and it stood over me, pressing my own spear against my throat.

“Now swear to me.”

The terms of the duel were these: if I won, I would kill the demon calling itself Velvet. If I lost, I would swear loyalty to that demon for as long as my life lasted.

As long as my life lasted.

I tilted my head forward, meeting the eyes of the demon as the spear pricked my skin. The muscles in my neck tensed as I readied myself to push further. But then they tensed further. My whole body seemed to tauten. The demon had frozen me in place.

“Swear your oath.”

“What have you done to me?”

“I’ve beaten you.”

“Why can’t I move?”

The demon looked confused; a new expression. “What do you mean?”

“Undo this … spell.”

“Spell?” The demon withdrew the spear. Immediately I felt free again, and got to my feet. As I did, a young boy appeared beside me. Laphicet, the spirit with whom I had formed a pact just prior to the duel. He spoke to the demon.

“She tried to hurt herself. I had to stop her.” He turned to me. “Please don’t do that again. I was scared.”

“You can control my body?”

“I didn’t mean to! When I saw what you were doing, I panicked! I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be.” The demon laughed. “Thank you, Laphicet. Make sure she doesn’t try any other tricks.”

The demon moved forward and gripped my shoulder with the claw that burst sickeningly from its left arm. “Now swear.”

* * *

_I was still a child when I joined the Abbey. Even my memories from then are small and jittery. I was lying on a bed, but it was too big. I put sheets and clothing and a broom on one side and lay with my back against the pile. The arms of a dress embraced me._

_There was a knock on the door that I didn’t answer. Then it opened anyway and I tried to hide from the tall man with white hair who had come in without asking._

" _Are you alone?"_

_I grabbed the broom and tried to hold it like a spear. The man smiled and did nothing even though I could see he had a sword. “What’s your name, child?”_

" _Eleanor."_

* * *

The spirit-child Laphicet was sitting next to me when I woke up. The demon’s party had taken shelter in an abandoned stone structure that extended deep into the hills of Yvolg. The party was Laphicet, a man named Rokurou, another named Eizen, a witch named Magilou, and the demon. And now me as well.

“Are you better?” asked Laphicet. “Magilou says that a person sometimes feels unwell after … bonding with a spirit.”

“Yes. Thank you, I feel fine.” I stood up, and closed my eyes until the dizziness passed. “Though I think fresh air would be nice.” Laphicet looked worried. “Don’t worry. I keep my promises. I’m not running away.”

He didn’t seem convinced. I kneeled before him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What are you afraid of? I have no weapon, and you can stop me like that.” I snapped my fingers.

“I don’t want to do that. I want to trust you, Eleanor.”

I smiled. “Then forget about my oath to that demon. I promise _you_ , Laphicet, that I will leave and come back.”

He smiled, too. “Alright.”

* * *

_I think about my childhood to remember who I am and what I need to do. The man fed me and took me from my mother’s house, through the dead village and onto a ship. I kept the broom with me and he told me to use it to keep my cabin clean._

" _You can’t kill a demon with that. But if you obey me I can teach you how you can."_

_I fought with the other children of the Abbey. Artorius took my broom and broke it._

" _These are your brothers and sisters. Save that anger for the enemy."_

* * *

I returned to the ruins, and the demon was waiting for me.

“What were you doing?”

“Walking. Clearing my head.”

“Did you meet with anyone? Did you send a message?”

I hesitated, and the demon struck me across the face. “Who did you speak to?”

“No one.”

“You swore to do as I say. Tell me the truth.”

“I met with nobody. I sent no message.”

The claw came out. It seized me around the middle and pulled me forward, so that the demon could search my face for a lie. I met its gaze. It would not kill me, because of what might happen to Laphicet if our link was severed. The claw withdrew.

“Get inside.”

* * *

_Artorius trained me to fight with a spear. I learned how to parry and thrust, and to keep the enemy at a distance._

" _Remember who is behind you, who you are protecting."_

* * *

Laphicet is the only one of the party who speaks freely with me. This angers the demon, who is strangely possessive of the child-spirit.

“Eleanor,” he said, when the demon was out of earshot. “Why do you want to kill Velvet?”

I thought how to explain it to a child. “That demon has hurt so many people. I want to make sure nobody else gets hurt.”

“But,” he looked uncertain, “don’t you sometimes hurt people too?”

I sighed. “I don’t want to. But sometimes you have to, to protect innocent people.”

“I don’t think Velvet wants to either. She was trying to protect her brother.”

“And now? Who is the demon killing for?” I already knew what he wanted to say.

“It’s not for you, Laphicet.” He looked up, caught. “It was killing people before it found you.”

I thought he might cry, and reached out to embrace him, but he stepped from me, then left the tent.

* * *

_When I was fifteen I was named an exorcist and Artorius took me into the field. It was a village much like mine. All the houses were abandoned, or had bodies. Artorius said there were many such now, after the Scarlet Night._

_When I finally saw movement through a window I ran to open the door and saw myself on the bed looking at a demon. But this time I had no broom but a spear and I knew how to use it._

_As the demon bled out I looked at the child. Not me, but with the same fear in her eyes. Then the second demon came from behind._

* * *

We sailed east and north to Loegres, center of the empire. Unloaded, then made for one of those boarding-houses that would overlook demons in their rooms. Then the demon and Magilou left to purchase supplies. I followed behind, not with any hope of restraining them, but to learn the town.

Magilou moved aimlessly, but the demon took quick strides to a weaponsmith with whom it seemed to have rapport. A few words, then it removed the gauntlet blade from its arm and handed it over. Despite its brutality, the demon handled the thing delicately, passing the weapon hilt-first, allowing the smith to draw the blade from careful fingers. I felt a moment of involuntary concern for those thin fingers, holding steel.

Magilou was beside me. “You can’t kill her just by staring,” she said.

I ignored her and followed the demon higher up into the city. Magilou kept pace beside me. “Have you broken in your new spirit yet?”

Prior to my pact with the spirit Laphicet, I was vessel to Bienfu. It was Magilou who tore that spirit from me. I walked faster.

“With Bienfu I found I had to quash some habits he picked up from you. Was it the same for Number Two?” That was what the exorcist Teresa called Laphicet, when he was hers. “What do you think he inherited from _her_? Come to think, maybe that’s why Velvet gets him confused with her little brother. Poor Laphicet was exposed to all of Teresa’s sweet daydreams about Oscar, and the stench is still on him. You’ll have to wash it off if you want to steal him away.”

The demon was some distance ahead of us by this time. It had stopped at a sort of lookout above the shipyard. I assumed it was searching for our ship below, but as we approached I saw that there was a man next to the demon, attempting conversation. Without the claw exposed Velvet looked like a human woman; the man certainly took her as such. He laughed and moved closer, and the demon shrank against the wall, for all the world looking like nothing more than a frightened girl. Magilou and I both started forward. Then the claw was out, slowly drawing a red line upon the man’s neck.

* * *

_I was not allowed to train until Artorius decided my shoulder was healed. He told me to stay in my room but when I looked at my bed I imagined the little girl lying there and I wondered if Artorius had lied to me. When he told me she had survived._

_So instead of bed-rest I got in a fight with a boy because he made a pass at me a few years earlier. I knocked him down and straddled him but his friend took my bad shoulder and threw me off. One of them kicked me while pain-lights danced in my eyes and as I lay there I thought of something Artorius had told me._

" _Remember who is behind you, who you are protecting." I had failed that little girl, and I had no one left to protect._

* * *

When we returned to the inn I spoke to Eizen and he left to see that the injured man didn’t make trouble. Then I explained to Laphicet what had happened.

“But what did he want? Why was he bothering her?”

“Because she’s a woman.”

He wanted to see her, so we went and knocked. “Yes?” I motioned that Laphicet should be the one to speak.

“It’s me. Can I come in?”

“This place doesn’t have locks.”

Laphicet entered, while I stayed at in the doorway. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I heard about what happened, with the man.” The demon looked at me, then laughed.

“So she is concerned for me now? Very chivalrous.”

“I know you can look after yourself. Laphicet was concerned, that’s all.”

“Then why did you tell him?”

“If it had affected you, that may have affected him.”

“But you can now see I am quite unaffected. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” I said, and left them.

* * *

_I was escorted back to my room after the fight and found it wasn’t empty. Not with the little ghost, but a woman. She stood by the window and evening lit her hair. Red hair, like my mother._

" _Hello, Eleanor. My name is Seres."_

_Not a ghost; not my mother. But she was a spirit, as I learned, bound to Shepherd Artorius._

* * *

To Yseult, where we found the Abbey in great force. Teresa and Oscar, the half-sibling exorcists, had decreed that the nearby temple be refashioned for use by the Abbey. The priestess of the local religion had locked herself in the temple, and the populations of Yseult and Haria were becoming restive.

We stayed within rooms during the day to avoid notice. Even I am not safe; all of the Abbey save one now believe me a traitor. I took the opportunity to sit and speak with Laphicet. He had been unusually occupied for several weeks now, and I wanted to know why.

“You’re trying to translate this book?”

“Yes!” He was fluent in his excitement. “We think it will help us figure out what the Abbey is doing, why they’re trapping demons.” In a forest to the north, we found a demon-beetle in a cage of light, desperate as a fly in a jar. And something much the same in the Abbey itself, when I suffered my second defeat against Velvet, and Magilou tore the spirit Bienfu from me. At the bottom of a pit, there had been a demon, caught in a golden net. But it wasn’t my business why it was there.

“And someone here in Yseult might be able to help you?”

“Yes. Magilou thinks so anyway.”

“And she – we aren’t planning on doing anything rash? Fighting members of the Abbey?”

“No, of course not. But anyway,” here he looked at me, rebellious, “I’m not worried. Velvet says she was the one who did that to Oscar, after all.” When we had seen Oscar and Teresa from our upstairs window, the young man had a bandage fully covering one of his eyes.

“Laphicet –” I was losing him again, and I had so little time.

“I want to study this some more.” He opened his great book again and turned from me. I watched his face, tense in pretend concentration, then nodded and left the room.

At the doorway to the parlor I stopped, because inside was the demon, standing with a young woman. She was crying, and gripping the demon’s hands. I felt unaccountably embarrassed, and gave a small cough. The woman looked up, and her face changed to something of both fear and anger when she saw me.

“It’s all right,” said the demon, placing a hand on her shoulder. “This one’s ours. She won’t betray you.”

The woman looked back at the demon, then nodded. “Thank you again. I must leave.”

She left and the demon turned to me. “Your Abbey couldn’t convince the local priestess to quit the temple, so they’ve taken her daughter as hostage. She,” a cock of her head towards the door, “suspected we were mercenaries, and wants us to get the child back.”

“And?”

That smile. “We will.”

* * *

" _Seres?"_

" _Yes?"_

" _How old are you?"_

_She laughed. “What brought this on?”_

" _I don’t know," I said. It was the truth._

" _Well, I guess it depends on where you start counting from."_

" _What do you mean?"_

" _Is it from when I was born, or from when I became as I am now?"_

" _You were a human, once?"_

_Seres smiled. “Yes. I was called Celica then.”_

" _How did you become a spirit?"_

" _I’m not sure." She wasn’t smiling anymore. “I think only Arthur knows.”_

" _Arthur?"_

" _Artorius."_

* * *

The woman hiring us guessed that the child would be held in the living quarters, which were underground. Laphicet became agitated as we descended to the lower level; much like in the forest when we found the caged demon. The door to the living quarters was crossed with bars, hastily installed. We broke them down, entered, and I felt my past rush up and drown me as the girl turned to see who had come. The girl on the bed, and the demon, now one and the same. The Abbey had taken this child from her home, brought her to this cold place, and fed her on her own fear and yearning. They made her into a demon, then locked her away.


	2. The Beginning

We sailed north and Laphicet remained distant. He was increasingly loyal to the demon, and found further fault in the distance I kept from the demon-girl.

“She’s just a child,” he would say. “Why can’t you be kind to her?” I didn’t know how to tell him that she wasn’t just a child, but something else, something that involved the Abbey and secrets I was not to know.

“She’s a demon, Laphicet.”

“But she hasn’t hurt anyone! She’s just scared.”

I walked away and found the past haunting my room again. The little girl I couldn’t save. The orphan lying with a heap of clothes. I flung them from my bed and shattered the frame so they wouldn’t have a place to sit. So they would leave.

A small knock and the demon-girl looked in. Even though she was scared. “Are you alright? I heard …” I turned, and forced a smile.

“Thank you.” Her name. “Thank you, Kamoana.”

* * *

In the north, beyond Hellawes, another demon. This one had submitted willingly to her imprisonment, to atone for her crime. She had murdered her husband, an exorcist, after he destroyed the demon that was left of their child. I visited her after she was brought aboard our increasingly crowded ship. I asked her for what purpose she was placed in that cage of light, the same as the others.

“When I killed my husband, I thought I was avenging my daughter. He was not her true father, and in my grief I invented all the ways in which he had slighted her, every way in which he treated her as a nuisance instead of as the daughter of his wife. But Lord Melchior came to me and showed me how I was misled. I had already lost my daughter; what my husband had killed was not my dear girl, but a false copy, a lying evil that had consumed her life. It was my husband who avenged Diana, and I had not seen it.”

I had met Melchior only once: advisor to Artorius, and exorcist in his own right.

“Melchior told me how I might atone for my sins,” the demon said. “I could serve as a vessel, to collect the twisted and cruel thoughts of others, to spare them from acting in rashness, as I had done. I could sacrifice my ruined self, to spare so many innocents.”

I thought of Velvet. She had been imprisoned as well, by Artorius himself. How might things have been different, had she not escaped? But then I thought of Kamoana, alone in her cell.

“I would ask a favor of you. There’s a girl here on the ship who lost her parents, and none of us can be often with her. Would you look after her, for a time?”

* * *

Then to Aball. The village where the demon Velvet was born, and then met Artorius. Laphicet believed that another demon was now kept there.

We made port at Taliesin then moved inland on foot. The demon became withdrawn, and spoke little even to Laphicet.

“Now that we’re here, I don’t think she likes how much I remind her of her brother,” he said to me. “Maybe she feels guilty that she has a new little brother and doesn’t think about him enough.”

“Or maybe she still confuses the two of you.”

Laphicet frowned at me, and I relented. “I’m sorry. That was unkind.”

He almost smiled. It was a start.

* * *

As we approached Aball I caught up to the demon, walking ahead of party.

“May I ask you a question?” She didn’t answer, so I did. “How much do you remember from before you became a demon?”

She kept walking. Then, “so that’s how you see it.”

“See what?”

“To you I’m the demon who took away Velvet Crowe. I killed her and took her form, and speak with her voice. That’s why you need to kill me.”

We continued walking toward Aball. “I remember everything.”

* * *

We arrived at Aball and something was wrong. The others told me that the people of Aball had become demons on the Scarlet Night; and then were destroyed by Velvet. But they were there, turning to look as we entered the village.

Laphicet followed me into an open square, where a market might be held. “Was Velvet mistaken?” he said quietly. “Did she not kill them, after all?”

“Velvet!” A girl approached us, smiling at the demon, who did not smile but stared, reddening. The girl had red hair and took the demon’s hand. “I’ve missed you.”

“Niko.” The demon looked at the hand in hers. “How are you alive?”

“Artorius,” and the demon’s hand twitched out of the other. “He was able to heal us.” The demon’s eyes searched through Niko, and I was suddenly afraid for them both. “I know you did not mean to hurt us, Velvet. We bear no ill will.”

Then I was at the demon’s side and touching her shoulder. “Velvet,” I whispered, for the first time. “You know that can’t be true.”

The red-haired girl turned to me. “Who is this?”

Velvet didn’t answer. “Niko.” She took her hand again. “Do you remember what you told me, the last time we were here together? About what it might have been like if I was a boy?” The girl said nothing but smiled. “Do you remember? You said that you would have fallen in love with me.”

“Did I say something like that?” Still holding Velvet’s hand. Which became a claw, and pierced the girl through.

The girl didn’t bleed, but faded, and then the illusion lifted. The other villagers were gone, and there was Melchior, second to Artorius, who had tricked the woman Medissa into forgiving her daughter’s murderers.

Then he too was gone.

* * *

Velvet spoke to none of as we returned to the port city of Taliesin. We had discovered and unbound a demon outside Aball, and had then left. Velvet would not stay, even to rest, and we departed in twilight.

Even when we arrived and took rooms in Taliesin she left us at once, sitting together and watching her make for the harbor.

“Is anyone going to follow her?” I looked at the others, and saw then that I wanted to be the one there with her.

* * *

Velvet had walked to the end of the breakwater and stood facing the sea. I stopped some yards away, watched her breathe, shift her weight.

“Either come out, or go back.”

I left the shadows and went to her.

“So?”

“The others are worried about you,” I said.

“But you aren’t?” I opened my mouth and had no answer. I looked away. “Then why are you here?”

I didn’t know so I sat on the half-wall next to her and kept my hands in my lap. She looked at me, then sighed and almost laughed. She sat on the opposite wall, facing me. I looked up.

“I’m sorry,” I said. Anything I think to say sounds like Niko. What she told you. About ill will."

She stood again, turned back to the ocean.

I drew a breath. “Was it true, what you asked her? Did she – say that to you?”

Velvet turned sharply, searched me. Wondered, perhaps, if I could be trusted, or if I would take what she might tell me and sharpen it, keep it ready in my cloak.

“Yes.” She moved closer, until she was looking down at my face. “Niko said that if I was a boy she would have fallen in love with me. And I told her if I was a boy, I would fall in love with her. Because I know I would have fallen in love with her just the same. But,” in the darkness I couldn’t see her claw until it was pressing against my chest. Gently; a warning and a request. “Do you think she could have loved me like this?”

* * *

I waited some time after Velvet left to return to the inn myself. The only person downstairs was Rokurou, unconscious where we had left him. I went to my room and lay awake, trying to imagine the demon when she was still human. She had a family, and had loved a girl. Niko had red hair, like mine. But we were nothing alike, after all.

I felt myself falling asleep. Then I saw for a moment the demon laying on top of me, and fire raced across my skin.

* * *

_Seres knocked softly and entered without waiting to hear my reply. There was an energy about her I had never seen before. I rose and she signed for me to be silent._

_“Eleanor, I’ve come to say goodbye.”_

_“Where are you going?”_

_“I can’t say. I – we – Arthur and I will be away for some time. We’re leaving tonight. I wanted to see you.”_

_She knelt to look at me, sitting on my bunk. She took my hand. “Eleanor. I love you. And – trust yourself, before anyone else.”_

_“Don’t leave me.” I felt like a child again. She embraced me, then slipped from me, then was gone._

_I never saw her again. But in the morning, Artorius was still there, and I saw the betrayal in his eyes._

* * *

Velvet didn’t speak to me for some time after Aball. Nor, it seemed, the others; Laphicet began sitting with me again, and I could not avoid finding joy in this effect of Velvet’s grief.

We had returned to Loegres, which was large enough to let us disappear while we collected news and stores. And waited for Velvet. The others were impatient, but I would not be the one to drag her from herself. Whenever I thought of what she had told me of Niko, I was ever more astonished at what she had let me see, and how she might regret it.

So instead I rebuilt my friendship with the spirit-child.

“Thank you, Eleanor.” He said this as we walked through the city’s side streets. Velvet would have forbid us from unnecessary trips in daylight, and we both enjoyed our rebellion.

“What are you thanking me for?”

“For looking after Velvet. I’m sorry that – I thought you didn’t care about her.” He blushed.

“I don’t know if I deserve that. She won’t speak to me either.”

“But in Taliesin, they said you went after her, and made sure she was alright.”

Now I blushed, and laughed a little. “She would have been fine, Laphicet.”

“Maybe.”

Laphicet trusted me again, and we were in Loegres, close to the imperial throne. The two of us emerged from the streets onto a lookout that showed us the great harbor and an open sea. I felt more free than I had ever been, as I looked down on the world.

I could finally carry out Artorius’ last order to me. I would take the spirit Laphicet to him, and would be released from my double life. No longer a traitor, nor a spy, but honored by the Shepherd. No longer bound to Velvet, no longer responsible for unraveling her strange past, combing through its knots. Her black hair, and how it had shone next to Niko’s red.

I looked down, away. I saw a dark smear on the stone. Velvet had stood here, weeks before, and scored a man’s throat when he came too close.

“Let’s keep moving, Laphicet. We’re too exposed.” I took his hand and returned to the alleys, aiming for the upper city. At the Villa, I would be safe. If Melchior himself were not there, enough exorcists would still be present to ensure Laphicet did no harm to me, or himself. He would understand, eventually. Artorius would teach him, as he had taught me. If the Shepherd could be harsh, I would be there to soften his counsel, as Seres had done.

I saw red hair in the crowd and started, but I shook myself and moved on. She was gone, as Niko was gone, and my mother. But my mind was moving on strange paths, and I began imagining more familiar faces. The boy I fought at 15. Magilou, incongruous in somber brown. Kamoana, who we rescued from the dungeons of Palamides. Then I remembered the cavern beneath the Villa.

Velvet and her party had broken into the Villa once before. It was there I suffered my second defeat, and had the spirit Bienfu stripped from me. Still I chased them, until I saw the cage of light, trapping a demon deep underground.

I looked down at Laphicet, still holding my hand. They would not imprison him. I would ensure it. Artorius had trusted me with this task, and would trust me to guide his judgment as to the spirit I offered him. He was not so cruel.

I stopped, surrounded by people in the upper square. The gates of the Villa lay ahead, and the guards who would take me in.

Artorius did not not allow suffering or sacrifice without need. Had I failed in my charge, what would he have done? And I knew then that he would have done nothing. He was prepared for me to fail. If I died, I would die a traitor, unmourned.

“Eleanor?” Laphicet looked up, worry across his face. I knelt, and covered my face. I did not want to see his concern, or feel his light touch on my arm. I didn’t know what to do.

“I’m alright, Laphicet.” I looked up and smiled at him, just as I had smiled when we first met, when he let me leave the camp to walk alone. “Thank you, I’m alright.”

I stood up again and glanced around, remembering our peril in the city at day. The only person looking at us was the little girl who I thought was Kamoana. But then she cried out, pointing, and Medissa was there, and I felt Velvet’s claw around my neck.

* * *

I could have withstood Velvet’s interrogation. I knew pain and could endure it. But when Laphicet entered and asked if I had betrayed them, I was undone. I told them, then, of what happened after lost the duel and swore obedience to Velvet. Laphicet had allowed me to walk alone, and Artorius had contacted me with his magic. He had given me a secret charge, to deliver Laphicet to him while appearing a traitor to all others. I had gained their trust, all for that end.

I finished, and looked down at my tears. Velvet’s claw lifted up my face, and one long finger pressed gently into my throat. “You had me fooled. Eleanor.” I felt the first blood on my chest. “I really thought you changed.” I closed my eyes. If I had changed, it was too late. Too late to save anyone, again.

“Velvet, no!”

The claw withdrew, and the blood came faster. I opened my eyes and Laphicet was holding her arm, crying now too.

“Don’t kill her. Please, don’t kill her.”

* * *

_Artorius made no public mention of Seres’ disappearance, and his silence fell on the rest of us like a prohibition. But he spoke her absence in his decrees, which hardened as the days passed. He summoned me to him, and asked if Seres had said anything to me the day before. For the first time, I lied._

* * *

They took me to Titania, the prison island that Velvet had escaped from and now controlled. There were no windows, but it must have been evening when Velvet brought me food and placed it next to me on the wooden bench. I ate silently and she watched me, unmoving. When I finished she spoke. “Why did you let us catch you?”

“What?”

“You stopped at the gates of the Villa. You could have reached them, but you stopped.”

“I – was afraid.” Velvet watched me. “Of what they might to do Laphicet. Like with Kamoana.”

“They would have done much worse.”

I couldn’t look at her. Velvet said nothing, then blew out her breath. “I don’t understand you. You want me dead, you’re ready to betray Laphicet to Artorius, but it’s that little girl you can’t bear to look at who stops you.” I looked up. “I saw how you avoided her, then passed her onto Medissa.”

“I –” But she was right, of course, and I wondered how I had managed to fool her in anything.

“What?”

“I – don’t want you dead.”

“Yes you do.” Velvet moved closer. “You want to kill me, because demons killed yours.” My hands shook as I looked down again. “Who did they kill?” I shut my eyes against her. “Your mother?” Then I was on my feet, and then I was gripping the front of her shirt. She did not strike me, or pull away. She only looked down at my face. “I did not kill her, but you want my life all the same.”

“Don’t you dare – you –”

“You are not the only one who lost your family. Artorius took my brother and sister. Should I wish you dead on their account?”

“Sister?” I had only ever heard her speak of her brother Laphicet, the one who looked so much like my spirit-child that she had given them the same name.

“My sister, Celica.”

Blood rushed and I fell back, staring.

“When did she – when did you lose her?”

“Six years ago. On the Scarlet Night.” When Artorius began speaking to a being I couldn’t see. Who three years later became visible to me as Seres. I sat down and looked anywhere but at Velvet, and soon she left.

* * *

_I was sent far north to Hellawes, to guard the port from demons that had been sighted in the hills above the city._

_“You will protect the port only,” Artorius said. “Do not leave Hellawes. The villages beyond the city are not your concern.”_

_I saw that it was a test, that he might see if I was still to be trusted. The morning after my arrival, I left the city and went north._

* * *

I woke up stiffly and Velvet was sitting against the opposite wall, looking tired. Her eyes followed me as I sat up, then slid away. I waited, then spoke.

“What time is it?”

“Early morning.” Velvet’s eyes came back to me. “Are you hungry?”

“A little.”

“I’ll bring you something.”

“Thank you.” I thought I might cry again and looked down while the silence settled between us. I endured it as long as I could, then looked at her again. She looked angry, more so than when I thought she would kill me before Laphicet intervened. Then she had seemed only disappointed.

“Laphicet wants to talk to you.”

“Oh. Alright.”

“And he wants me there when he does.” I nodded. “Sometime this afternoon.” She moved to the door.

“Velvet!”

She paused. “How did you –” I breathed, started over. “The Abbey – we – imprisoned you here. Like the other demons were imprisoned. In those cages of light. But you escaped.” She faced me fully now. “How did you do it? Who helped you?”

Velvet looked at me hard. “Must I have had help?”

“The others did.”

“I am not like the others.”

“I know you’re not. Velvet.”

She softened, but remained at the door. “Why are you asking me this?”

I swallowed the dry anticipation in my throat. “It was Seres who helped you. Wasn’t it?”

Velvet said nothing. Then she moved back towards me, slowly. I could see the tangles in her hair.

“We all saw that she had left Artorius. No one knew why. But before she left –” My heart was jumping. “She was like a sister to me. I loved her. I felt she had abandoned me. But, I was never her sister.” I reached gently for Velvet’s left hand, which could become a claw and destroy me. I took it, and looked up at her. “You were. It was Celica who rescued you.”

Her hand trembled in mine, and she nodded. I wanted to ask what had happened, and where Seres now was. But in Velvet’s eyes I felt a great premonition of grief, and I said nothing. She placed her other hand on mine, then withdrew. “I’ll return with food.” The door closed and I lay, exhausted, on the cold bench.

* * *

_The village of Beardsley was not wholly abandoned, I could tell. Many of the houses were still bolted with no signs of violence around the doors or windows. But no one emerged to welcome me. I entered an empty building on the edge of the town, and waited._

_In the afternoon a door opened and a small girl began making her way down the path to Hellawes. I gave her a lead, then followed. But she was already being tailed._

_I ran. For once, I would not fail._

* * *

My audience with Laphicet was very painful. I did not ask for forgiveness, which I did not deserve. All he asked me was why. But I found I could not explain the reasons which had compelled me to betray my friends, yet had abandoned me at the gates of the Villa. All I had to offer was my remorse.

“I won’t make promises this time, Laphicet. You’ve no reason to think I won’t break them again. But through my actions, maybe one day you can trust me again.” He nodded, eyes dim, then touched Velvet’s arm and she led him away.

* * *

_Artorius had trained me, and my spear took what was left of the demon’s life. It fell, and I looked to the girl, and held out my hand. But the fear did not leave her face, and she fled from me as though I was her pursuer._

* * *

Velvet returned in the evening to bring me dinner. She ate with me then told me I could leave my cell and return to the upstairs quarters. I was still the vessel for Laphicet’s spirit, and he could not leave the island without me. So I was to rejoin the party, though unarmed. And I was not allowed my own room. Velvet showed me to a room with two beds, where she would guard me. She closed the door and I stood, eyes lowered.

“Thank you.”

“We don’t have a choice, Eleanor.”

“No – thank you for not making me eat with them tonight. And thank you – for being here with me.”

I felt her approach, then she lifted my face to study me. Searching – but not, this time, for a lie. “What do you mean?”

I didn’t know how to tell her that the first time she spoke my name was when she pressed her claw into my neck and told me that she thought I had changed. That the first relief I felt when she spared my life was because I might hear her say Eleanor again. That I wanted her in a way I had never wanted anything before. I took hold of the hand that held my chin, and pressed it to my mouth. I could read nothing in her eyes.

“I love you, Velvet.”

Velvet didn’t speak. Then there was a strange smile on her face. “You do?”

Suddenly I remembered the incident with the man in Loegres: his approach, and a claw across a neck. I stumbled backwards, tripped, then felt those claws at my back. I stopped falling.

Velvet pulled me to my feet, and I stood before her.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I was still afraid to look at her, but after more silence I did. She was still smiling in that odd way. Her clawed hand was still wrapped around my waist. Then she drew me closer.

“You say you love me?” I flushed. “I don’t believe you.” I said nothing. I was beginning to understand her smile. I suddenly thought of her friend Niko, who might have loved Velvet, if she had been a boy. We were nothing alike, after all. I placed my hand on Velvet’s arm, and it tensed. Then I kissed her.

“Please believe me.”

* * *

_I looked down at the corpse of the demon, and saw that in death it had reverted to its true form. A woman. She had been corrupted, took on hideous form, and I had killed her. The look I had seen in the girl’s eyes before she fled brought me to my knees. I looked again at the woman, and wondered what they had been to each other._

_Then footsteps. Through my tears I saw a woman approaching, and a man. The woman’s dark hair sparkled with the snow that had started to fall. She stopped, and looked at me, and in her beauty I saw power, and conviction, and despair._

_My first defeat._


End file.
